AMD has recently notified its partners that the launch of higher-end quad-core Phenom processors, including the 9700 and 9900, will be postponed to the second quarter of 2008 from the original schedule of early 2008, according to sources at motherboard makers.

Furthermore, according to DigiTimes, whether AMD's triple-core Toliman series CPUs will also see delay will be the key decision for the company, since Toliman offers a high price/performance ratio compared with Intel's quad-core CPUs. A delay for Toliman will hurt AMD the most, noted the sources.

The sources commented that the reason for the delay of 9700 and 9900 is because AMD has not yet been able to solve the translation lookaside buffer (TLB) erratum found in the chips. However, they added in saying that, in the long-term, AMD's decision is correct since pushing products that are not ready will only hurt the company more.

AMD declined to comment on this report. The company pointed out that it has not made any official announcement regarding a delay of the mentioned CPUs.